SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- Scott Sizemore doesn't seem to be able to avoid injury.

The best he can hope for when injuries come, as one did Sunday in the A's 7-2 win over the Colorado Rockies, is that they are minor.

Sizemore was hit on the back of the left hand with the bases loaded in the third inning. He came out of the game shortly thereafter for what the club deemed precautionary reasons.

Later, however, manager Bob Melvin said there was enough pain for Sizemore to have trouble gripping a bat.

The A's medics are optimistic enough that the injury is minor that they didn't order X-rays, which they would have done if there were any suspicion of a fracture.

"They don't think it's a fracture," Melvin said. "We'll see how it goes overnight, and we can do that (X-ray) tomorrow, if necessary."

Sizemore missed the 2012 season after suffering a torn knee ligament during the A's first full-squad workout. Now he's fighting to make a case for himself as the starting second baseman. He had singled his first two times up Sunday, an abrupt about-face from the 1-for-10 burden he carried into the game.

The veteran infielder was talking on his cellphone as he left Talking Stick, the Rockies' home, during the middle of the game and was not showing any overt signs of pain.

  • Three times in the first three innings Sunday, the A's scored a run via a bases-loaded hit batter. Michael Choice was hit by a pitch in the first to give Oakland
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    a 1-0 lead, then Daric Barton and Sizemore were plunked in the third, again with the bases loaded, as the A's carved out a 4-0 lead.

    Scoring on a hit-by-pitch is the kind of thing that happens to a team just a handful of times in most regular seasons. To have it happen three times in three innings, and twice in the same inning, is highly irregular.

    But irregular is a good way to describe Sunday's game.

    "We're trying to get the (bases-loaded) HBP into the offense," Melvin joked. "You don't see that too often."

    Oakland's first four runs came across without a hit, the A's also scoring on a bases-loaded walk to Adam Rosales. Later in the game, Chris Young delivered an RBI single in the sixth, reserve catcher David Freitas homered as a pinch-hitter in the seventh, and Addison Russell capped the day with a ninth-inning RBI single.

  • In his first full spring training with the A's, starter A.J. Griffin can expect to start six times. He's mapped it out, and so far it seems none of them will take place at Phoenix Municipal Stadium, home of the A's.

    And three of the six will take place at Talking Stick, the Scottsdale complex shared by Arizona and Colorado.

    It hasn't mattered. In his first two starts, both at Talking Stick, Griffin has thrown five innings, allowed just one run and walked no one.

    "I feel right on track," Griffin said, adding he felt that some of his pitches were up early in the game but "I felt sharper the last inning."

    Melvin seemed to grade Griffin's start better than the pitcher did himself.

    "It's good that he sees that he was a little up, but he got it under control," the manager said. "It means he's trying to get better. It's a good thing."

  • Rosales, who played exactly zero games in left field for Oakland last year, started in left and led off. He finished with a hit, a couple of walks and a hard line drive. He does have seven appearances in left field in his career. "Adam looked terrific," Melvin said. "He plays a position he hasn't played that much, and he also gets four good at-bats."

  • Lefty Hideki Okajima, in camp on a minor league contract trying to make the roster at the end of the bullpen, threw a shutout inning and has a 0.00 ERA for the spring, having allowed two hits and two walks in three innings. "That's two or three very good games for Okajima," Melvin said.

  • Right-hander Pat Neshek has, like Okajima, pitched three times now, one inning each time, without giving up a run. He's allowed just one hit and one walk.

  • The A's made one roster move Sunday, sending right-hander Andrew Carignan to the minor league camp. There are still 59 players in camp, although that number might shrink Monday with other cuts expected.

    Carignan has spent bits of the last two seasons with the A's, pitching in 17 games for a total of 16 innings. He was 1-1, 4.66 for Oakland last year before undergoing ligament-replacement surgery on his right elbow. He won't be ready to pitch until deep into the season at the earliest.